


Back Against the Wall

by servantofclio



Series: Sewers to Stars [22]
Category: Mass Effect, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 20:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6872953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Desperate times call for desperate measures. In the midst of the Reaper invasion, there are hard, risky choices to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt from the lovely kleptotello, this is Turts Vs. Reaper Invasion adventure.

1.

Casey and Raph are supposed to be patrolling. They _are_ patrolling. 

Okay, they’re sitting on top of a building keeping an eye on the street, sharing a six-pack (Casey knows a guy who knows a guy who used to own a liquor store, so the upshot is, they still have beer). But they’ve _been_ patrolling, checked in with all their pals in the neighborhood, chased off a couple of looters. No Reapers tonight. It doesn’t do any harm to sit and catch their breath for a few minutes. They’ve got their eyes and ears open. 

“Hey,” Casey says. “If the husks, like, catch me and drag me off—” 

“Don’t,” Raph says, short and sharp. 

“But if they do—” 

“Not gonna happen.” Raph shoots a sideways glance at Casey. He hates when Casey turns into a mopey drunk. Usually it takes more than a couple of beers to get him there. But sure enough, tonight Casey’s staring off into space, looking glassy and moody, so Raph grabs a fistful of his jacket and yanks his dumb face closer to drive his point home. “Nothin’s gonna happen to you, Case.” 

Casey blinks at him a couple of times and grins, suddenly bright and open instead of moody. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. I was just thinking—” 

Raph snorts and lets go. “That’ll just get you in trouble.” 

“The husks used to be human once, so…” He trails off. “You ever think about it?” 

“No.” 

The truth is, Raph _has_ thought about it, and he’s not worried about getting husked himself. The Reapers’ deal is that they want to snatch up whole species, right? That’s what Shepard said, anyway. Harvest ‘em all, melt ‘em down into goo, make new Reapers. Stupid, but whatever, they want what they want. Raph has fought people who wanted dumber shit than that. In the meantime, they’ll turn people into husks and use ‘em for shock troops and cannon fodder. It’s gross, but effective. Some of ‘em were humans, some were all sorts of aliens, Raph doesn’t want to know why they got the bright idea to splice turians and krogan together into brutes, but whatever, his job is just to kill them, and he can do that. But Raph doesn’t see how mutant turtles have any part in the Reapers’ shitty, weird master plan. There’s only the four of them, always and forever; Reapers probably don’t give any more of a shit about them than the rest of the galaxy. He guesses the Reapers _could_ melt the four of them down and make the galaxy’s smallest Reaper, or something. 

But more likely, the Reapers will just ignore them, leave them the last ones standing. 

So Raph worries more about Casey and April and the rest of the humans they’re protecting. They’re the ones the Reapers want to snatch and turn into goo or husks. Donnie’s the genius, but Raph can handle basic math just fine: two plus two is four, four plus two is six, six times however many resistance cells there are in the city is a whole lot, and the Reapers still have them outnumbered by even more. 

He knocks back the rest of his beer, because thinking about their odds is just depressing, and he doesn’t need Donnie or Leo to spell it out for him. 

There’s a rumble of feet in the street below, and a scream. That gets Raph to his feet, weapons in hand, immediately. Beside him, Casey unfolds, lanky and tense. 

A mob of husks rounds the corner, coming down the street toward them, at least a dozen of them. They were carrying — shit. Raph can’t quite make out how many humans they’re carrying with them. One person who’s screaming and struggling, but there are at least two more limp burdens. He braces, ready to spring down into action. 

“I can’t reach the others,” Casey says. “We gonna do this anyway?” 

Two of them, at least twelve husks. At least one live captive. Every person they don’t save is another husk they’re gonna have to fight eventually. “They wouldn’t get here fast enough anyway,” Raph says, and leaps off the rooftop. 

The good thing about fighting husks is that husks aren’t smart. They’re pretty predictable, and Raph and Casey have a lot of practice fighting them. The hostages make a difference: no exploding hockey pucks this time. Raph hurls himself into the front rank of husks, bowling them over, and the prong of his sai is really good for ripping out the husks’ circuitry once he finds the right spot. He gets the hostage free in no time (a skinny teenager with a mop of pink-streaked dark hair)and he manages to break another husk’s neck in spite of their reinforced spines. Casey batters his way toward another hostage, using his bat to beat the husks away until they drop their captive. Casey drops to one knee beside the limp human, checking their pulse. Lunging after another husk, Raph realizes that the fuckers have actually regrouped and are running away from him down the street. 

“Look after the humans,” he shouts to Casey, and barrels after them. 

It’s a running fight, and Raph is fast but there’s _more_ of them, as soon as he lays hands on a husk carrying a captive and wrenches its arm backward, it drops the human and another husk snatches them off the ground. Raph leaves a trail of husks behind him with snapped necks and arms, leaking that weird, slippery blue fluid from their torn-out cybernetics. By the time he catches up to the last of them, they’re in the entryway of the building they were making toward and he’s sweating and furious. He pauses to check the nearest hostage — bruised, but still breathing, and not bleeding as far as he can tell — and then looks up. 

There’s a spike in front of him. About seven feet tall, shining silver metal, with a wide three-pronged base, slimming to a point at the top. The top of it winks electric blue. 

There’s another one behind it, and another, and another, winding through the lobby of what used to be a little neighborhood movie theater. 

Spikes. Dragons’ Teeth, Donnie calls them. Some old legend. 

With his heart pounding and something hard in his throat, Raph follows the trail, footsteps silent on the worn, stained carpet. When he pushes open to the door to the theater itself, he stops. Half of him wants to go forward, in wide-eyed fascination, to touch the weird mass of twisted curves deposited in front of the big screen. It’s like someone dropped in an alien glass sculpture, frozen waves in deep oily blue-black, thrumming with a faint, resonating hum. 

The other half of him wants to _run_. 

“Shit,” says Casey from behind him, voice barely audible. Somehow Raph manages to tear his eyes away from the extraordinarily beautiful ( _heart-stoppingly horrifying_ ) thing to look over his shoulder. 

Casey’s forehead his beaded with sweat. He’s biting his lip, his eyes wide with alarm. It takes him a moment to meet Raph’s gaze. 

“Yeah,” Raph says. “Try calling Donnie again. Or Leo. Tell them to bring explosives.”


	2. Chapter 2

2\. 

“You didn’t get too close to it, did you? Either of you?” Donnie asks, flicking on a penlight and peering into Raph’s eyes. 

“No, I already told you, and get away from me with that thing,” Raph snaps in answer, shoving the light away. 

Well, he’s still acting like Raph. He’s probably okay. Mikey shifts his weight from one foot to the other, staring at the building. It looks like an ordinary little rundown theater — actually, Mikey’s pretty sure he sneaked in here at least once for an all-night monster movie marathon. 

But right now, it is radiating super freaky creeparific vibes, like it’s totally the abandoned place someone got at a bargain price only to discover there were horrible murders inside and zombies erupting through the basement or something. Mikey can’t make himself get any closer. Just standing this close is making his hands sweat and his head ache. 

Casey’s explaining, “We only looked at it for a minute, and then we came right out to call you guys.” 

“Good, that’s good. Really good,” says Donnie, the way he does when he’s worried that something is actually not good at all: smiling and nodding a little too much and reassuring them a little too fast. 

“Dude, we know those things can get in our heads,” Mikey says, only to have Donnie going all laser-eyes at him. 

“Are you okay, Mikey? You’re not feeling or… hearing… anything odd?” 

“I’m fine,” Mikey says. 

Donnie’s eyes narrow. “Are you sure? You look a little nervous.” 

Mikey lets go of the nice, reassuring handles of his ‘chuks and tries to look not-nervous. “No, I’m fine. It’s cool.” 

“He just doesn’t want to get any closer to this mind-sucking Reaper bullshit, which is why we’re gonna blow it to hell,” Raph breaks in. “Nobody’s indoctrinated here.” 

Donnie says, “No, I’m sure you’re not,” but he gives Mikey a long, thoughtful look, and Mikey guesses he’s going to have to let Donnie check him out again later. 

Leo comes up to them from scouting out the perimeter, all serious mission face, and says, “Okay. I think we can blow the place without getting too close. If we plant charges on the exterior walls, the whole thing should come down, and the neighboring buildings are abandoned. April and Maricruz are going to see if we can get our hands on a rocket launcher to blow the thing up first, just to be sure, then we bury it under three buildings’ worth of rubble, and they won’t be using the artifact or the Dragons’ Teeth any more.” 

That sounds good to Mikey. Leo’s got a plan, awesome. He nods gratefully at Leo. “Sounds good, bro.” 

Donnie says, “Or.” 

They all snap around to stare at him. “ _Or_?” Raph says dangerously. 

Donnie holds up one finger. “Hear me out. Or we put some safeguards in place, destroy the Dragons’ Teeth, and put a sensor array in place so I can study it.” 

There is an immediate chorus of _no ways_ and _hell nos._ Mikey stays quiet, watching his brother. Donnie’s serious, really serious. He wouldn’t suggest something like this if he didn’t have a plan, too. 

Raph punches Donnie in the shoulder, growling, “Maybe _you’re_ the one we should be keeping an eye on.” 

“I’m not indoctrinated,” Donnie protests. 

Once the yelling dies down, Mikey says, “What are you thinking, D?” 

“I’m serious.” Donnie spreads his hands and looks at each of them in turn, including April and Maricruz, who have just come up behind Leo. “There’s a lot we don’t understand about the Reapers _or_ indoctrination. We know that they inject nanobots into organic bodies, filling them with circuitry that alters them into the husks and other Reaper ground troops. We know that proximity to artifacts like that one can alter organic brains and give them a compulsion to follow the Reapers’ orders. We _don’t_ know how the Reapers transmit their orders in either case. Anything we can learn might give us a little extra edge.” 

Now there’s a silence. Mikey looks uneasily around the circle. Casey is frowning, Raph scowling, looking like he wants to hit Donnie again. April has her mouth set in a hard line. Maricruz is frowning, too, hands planted on her hips. 

Leo looks… thoughtful. Shit. He’s actually thinking about it. Mikey swallows down his own urge to babble _no no no_. If Donnie wants to do it, he has to have a reason, and if Leo’s thinking about it, he has to have one, too. 

“It’s a risky move,” Leo says slowly. 

“It’s extremely dangerous,” Donnie replies, wide-eyed and earnest. 

“Why are we even talking about this, then?” Raph snaps. “C’mon, let’s blow this shit and go home.” 

“Because our backs are against the wall,” Donnie replies. 

Raph scoffs, but half-heartedly, and Donnie keeps talking. “I don’t mean just us.” He waves his finger in a circle, indicating the group. “I don’t even mean just humanity. I mean everyone, the whole advanced organic population of the galaxy. We were under-prepared for this invasion, and the Reapers won’t stop until they’ve destroyed us all.” 

Casey says, “Thought everyone was pitching in to build that super-weapon Crucible thing.” 

“Yes,” Donnie says. “The Alliance is sufficiently desperate that they’re investing enormous amounts of labor and material into building a device that they don’t understand, nor even know what it does, from blueprints left for us by a previous alien civilization who failed to save themselves with exactly the same device. They’re putting all their eggs in that basket. I’m suggesting that if we take another approach, we might be able to come up with some kind of alternative. Call it a contingency, or a failsafe.” 

Maricruz snorts. “And you think you, studying this thing by yourself, can come up with something?” 

Mikey glares at Maricruz. Maricruz is cool, usually, but this is just rude. He has to remind himself that she hasn’t known them that long. She wasn’t around when Donnie figured out how to block the portals to dimension X permanently, or any of the other times he saved everyone’s bacon. This plan probably sounds extra nuts if you don’t know about all of that. Still, Mikey says firmly, “If anyone can do it, Donnie can. You should have seen all the stuff he’s done before.” 

“He never said by himself,” April adds. “You and I could both help, Maricruz. Any other scientists we can round up, too.” 

“The question is,” Donnie says evenly, “if the Alliance is desperate enough to throw everything they have into the Crucible, how desperate are we?” 

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Raph says, but Mikey is looking at Leo, and he’s pretty sure Leo’s made up his mind. 

“A little extra edge,” Leo says. “What do you need to secure the building?” 

Raph groans and turns away, hands on top of his head. Donnie starts rapid-fire outlining a bunch of things. Mikey edges further away from the building, until it doesn’t make him feel quite so twitchy. 

This isn’t the first time they’ve put themselves on the line for the world. It’s not that different, really. Mikey just really, _really_ doesn’t want the Reapers getting their tentacles into Donnie’s brain. That would suck beyond anything he can think of. 

But he meant what he said. If anyone can get them out of this, Donnie can. Mikey’s gonna bet everything he’s got on Donnie getting it right.


	3. Chapter 3

3\. 

Donnie hunches over his desk and stares at the data on his monitor. On a second screen, off to his left, he can see the camera feed of the Reaper artifact out of the corner of his eye. 

It glows, dimly, an eerie bluish light. Its geometries don’t correspond to any conventional terrestrial standard of aesthetics, but it’s compelling in a twisted kine of way, drawing the eye. Donnie determinedly doesn’t look at it head on. He knows perfectly well that’s the point of it, or at least one of them. It wants observers to get closer, so they can be influenced by the subsonic vibrations that alter their brain waves until they’re doing what the Reapers want. 

He is _not_ running an audio feed directly from the artifact’s chamber. He’s got sensors recording that data and mapping out the frequencies used, along with taking other readings. He’s trying to extract as much data as possible from the thing without exposing himself to any more of its influence than absolutely necessary. Cameras monitor the exterior of the building, too, to make sure no one approaches it, and they shielded it as best they could — with concrete and rubble and what force fields they could cobble together — and they did plant charges all around the artifact so they can blow it up the moment anything does wrong. They took every precaution Donnie could think of. 

Still. It sits glowing on the screen in Donnie’s peripheral vision, and there’s a good chance they should have gone with their first plan and destroyed it immediately. 

“Are you sure you want to take this on?” Leo had asked him in a low, serious undertone. It almost made Donnie want to laugh — Leo, whose youthful dreams of heroism metastasized into him shouldering every burden that comes his way with hardly a breath of complaint, is giving Donnie an out. 

But Donnie doesn’t shrink from his obligations, either. This is one of his. Anything technical is his bailiwick, always has been. Study a product of a technology that literally no one understands, trying to piece together enough clues about it to find a way to block it, stop it, or destroy it? Donnie doesn’t think it’s hubris to say that there may not be anyone on the planet better qualified through experience to do exactly that. 

“I know it’s a risk,” he’d said to Leo. “But all the same, the situation really is this desperate. If the Crucible project can’t be finished, or doesn’t work, or doesn’t work the way people think it will, we have virtually nothing to go on. The galaxy’s been denying the existence of Reapers for too long. The basic research on them and their artifacts hasn’t been done. Not enough of it, at least. It’s late to start, but… better late than never.” 

It was a weak, maybe even a ridiculous thing to say, but Leo had nodded, slowly, in response. Shadow and grime from crawling around planting charges combined to make him look far older than he had any right to. “Be careful,” he’d said, and that was all. 

Donnie’d expected April to have a few more choice things to say to him, but she hasn’t, though she’s moved around with her mouth set in a grim line. She’s a scientist. She understands, at least, that anything that could lead them a weakness of the Reapers may be their only shot. 

“Hey, D,” says Mikey. Donnie looks up to find Mikey shuffling his feet in the doorway, offering a tentative grin. “You said you wanted to see me?” 

“Yeah, come on in,” Donnie says, spinning his chair around. 

Mikey enters and sits in the second chair, but not without nervously glancing at the artifact in the monitor twice. “Do you— do you have to have it up there?” 

Donnie flicks off the monitor, and Mikey visibly relaxes. “Is it bothering you?” Donnie asks, scrutinizing his brother for any kind of adverse reaction. 

“Well, _yeah_ , dude. It’s mega creeptastic.” 

Donnie leans forward. “Yes, but it seems like you had an idiosyncratic, unusually strong reaction.” 

Mikey blinks and frowns. “Idiot-what?” 

“Not idiot, idiosyncratic,” Donnie says. “That means unusual, distinctive to an individual. Is it calling to you or drawing you closer or—” 

Mikey’s already shaking his head firmly. “No no. Nothing like that. Just the opposite, actually. I just…” He swallows, blue eyes shifting away. “I just _really_ didn’t want to get any closer to it.” 

Donnie sits back, bracing his hands on his knees, and thinks about that, about Mikey fidgeting twenty feet from the building and coming up with excuses not to enter the theater itself. “Well. Good instincts, at least,” he says, and Mikey’s eyes shoot back to him in surprise before he laughs. 

“Maybe it’s the Prothean beacon you were exposed to,” Donnie muses. 

“I wondered about that,” Mikey admits. 

Even if it’s true, it doesn’t really get them anywhere. Donnie sends a silent curse up to whatever probably non-existent deities ensured that Mikey is always the one who has weird singular experiences that Donnie can’t make anything of. It’s not as if he has the appropriate equipment to scan Mikey’s brain. All he can do instead is say, “Let me know if you have any other weird reactions, okay?” 

“Will do.” Mikey’s already cheerfully bouncing off his stool. “Thanks, D!” 

Left alone in the lab, Donnie sighs and spins his chair around to make a note in Mikey’s file. He checks the feeds from the artifact again, and then pulls up what information on the Reapers Shepard sent them ages ago, and what he managed to piece together (mostly from hacking Alliance files, a little from a turian contact feeding him info) since. There’s frustratingly little _data_. A whole lot anecdotes and speculation and reports, but not the nice solid numeric evidence that Donnie would prefer. Still, he starts combing through it, glancing occasionally at the data feeds from the artifact, making a new file with what numbers he has, jotting down his own best hypotheses. 

It’s all so insidious. Everything Shepard laid out for them: the way the Citadel itself is a trap, the way the mass relays channel species’ exploration and direct scientific progress, the way Reaper artifacts use people’s curiosity and capacity for analysis against them. Donnie wonders idly what the odds are that the Reapers are insane. If each one is indeed made up of the essence of a species, somehow rendered and distilled, didn’t each individual member die in terror and agony? What would that do to the collective psyche that becomes the Reaper? He makes a note to run that one by April later; she’s the psychologist. 

“You gonna stay up all night staring at that thing?” 

Donnie blinks dry eyes and winces at the tightness in his shoulders. He lost track of time, as per usual. He swivels his seat around. 

Raph is leaning one shoulder against the doorway, glowering at him. Donnie didn’t hear him coming — he really must be tired, plus overly focused — but he’s not surprised to see Raph here. “I wasn’t actually looking at it,” he explains patiently. “I’m just crunching numbers, and thinking.” 

“Uh-huh.” Raph pushes off from the door frame and comes into the lab. “What about?” 

Donnie blinks. “Calculating the odds that the Reapers are deranged as a result of being assembled from traumatized life forms?” 

Now it’s Raph’s turn to blink. His mouth screws up in disgust. “That’s creepy.” 

“Yeah,” Donnie sighs, and rubs his eyes. 

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Raph says, each word coming out sharp. “You know what Shepard said about those things.” 

“Yeah, of course I do,” Donnie says wearily. “That’s why it’s surrounded by every kind of shielding we could contrive, as well as a bunch of explosives. Apparently the Protheans could detect indoctrination. We should really figure out how they did that, but Shepard says her resident Prothean wasn’t one of their techs, so—” 

“Don’t spend too much time looking at it,” Raph bites out. 

Donnie heaves a sigh. “I’m just studying it, Raph. Observing it remotely shouldn’t trigger the indoctrination effects, especially not when—” 

“You sure about that?” 

Donnie narrows his eyes. “What’s your concern, exactly?” 

Raph steps right up next to him, jaw tight and chin up. “You let that thing eat your brain, and I will wring your scrawny neck myself.” 

Donnie stiffens, defensively, and opens his mouth, only to think better of the sarcastic response he was about to blurt out. Raph is dead serious, and his eyes are wide with a tinge of fear, if Donnie hasn’t missed his guess. 

He folds his arms. “Great,” he says dryly. “I’m not indoctrinated.” 

“Isn’t that’s what you’d say if you _were_?” 

“I want the Reapers destroyed. But right now we don’t actually know how to do that, and I’m trying to figure out how. That’s all.” 

Raph holds his gaze for a long moment before he says, “You’re not gonna figure it out tonight. Go get some sleep.” 

Donnie glances at the time and sighs. “You’re right. I’m going.” 

“I’m always right.” 

“You are absolutely not always right.” 

He doesn’t miss the fact that Raph is half a step behind him as they leave the lab or that he shuts the doors behind them both. 

It is actually a bit of a relief to know that if something went catastrophically wrong, and Donnie came to pose a danger to the rest of the family, Raph would take him out. Threatening him now is like Raph’s way of saying he’s got Donnie’s back. 

But Raph’s the one who would have to live with himself afterward, so it’s also a reminder to be careful. Donnie can’t cut any corners on this one. The stakes are too high. 

For a moment, he’s tempted to activate those explosive and destroy the artifact right now. Then he remembers that the stakes aren’t just his family, or even the city, or even the Earth. The entire galactic population is on the line. 

They need every advantage they can get, no matter how slim.


	4. Chapter 4

4\. 

Life used to be simpler. 

Okay, life used to involve more extradimensional aliens trying to kidnap April and a generations-old ninja feud they’d inherited, but it still used to be simpler. Mostly. Even untangling the most convoluted Kraang conspiracies was easier to manage when all Leo had to do was lead a strike team of four or five or six people. Even that, he’d been so bad at it for so long — never sure how to be brother and leader at once, too self-conscious, too full of himself — he still cringes when he thinks of the awful mistakes he’d made, every time Mikey calls himself and Donnie “the B team,” whenever he notices the old scars they all carry. 

Now the galaxy has come crashing down on their heads, and his team turned into twelve, twenty, fifty, sixty, and that’s just the coordinators of cells scattered throughout the city. It doesn’t count the fighters who take orders from those coordinators, or the medics, or the people running supplies, or the civilians they haven’t managed to evacuate yet. And somehow Leo’s found himself the one that people think is in charge. The cell leaders are smart people, and by now systems are set up to move food and medical supplies around where they’re needed — but Leo and his brothers are the ones who coordinate patrols and training and defenses, and they’re the ones people look for when a problem comes up. 

“I’ve got something!” 

Leo looks up from the city map he has spread out on their kitchen table — Adam and Deborah need to move themselves and the dozen sick kids they’re looking after, so he’s trying to find a safe location for them. Donnie’s in the doorway, practically vibrating with excitement. It’s almost like old times; Donnie’s eyes are brilliant and he’s grinning wide enough to split his face. Even the circles half-hidden under his mask aren’t anything unusual for Donnie after an all-nighter. “You’ve got something? What is it?” 

“The Reaper artifact,” Donnie says, and Leo stiffens. Part of him still worries it was a bad idea to give in to Donnie’s desire to study the thing. Leo’s not sure if that’s the smart part, or the selfish part that just wants to cling to his family above all. 

“What about it?” he asks warily. 

“It _and_ the Dragons’ Teeth emit a characteristic signal,” Donnie says. Raph and Mikey drift into the doorway behind him, drawn in, looking respectively wary and curious. 

“For indoctrination, right?” 

“Probably. Maybe. The point is —” Donnie leans forward, eyes bright, and points to the map “— I can trace other instances of the signal. I can find other artifacts and clusters of Teeth. I _have_ found them. We can take them out, Leo. Especially the Dragons’ Teeth.” 

“Cut off the Reapers’ ability to turn our people into husks,” Leo says. 

“Yes!” Donnie says. “I mean, obviously, they still have facilities elsewhere, but it would help a lot in the short term. And if I can detect the signature, then we can take out new artifacts whenever they set them up.”

This could be a game-changer, something actually worth the risk. “Show us where.” 

But he frowns as Donnie brings up his omni-tool and starts plotting sites out on the map. Scattered throughout the five boroughs, it’s not just a few clusters of Dragons’ Teeth, like Leo hoped, it’s more like… 

“Twenty-three?” he says, frowning at the map. 

Donnie shrugs. “As best I can estimate.” 

“That’s a lot for us to hit,” Leo says slowly, scanning over the map and mentally prioritizing. They’ll need to take out the ones closest to allied civilians first, those are a clear danger… 

“We don’t have to do it by ourselves,” Mikey pipes up. “What about everyone else?” 

“The humans want to get their hits in, too,” Raph says, arms crossed and scowling at the map himself. 

Leo takes a second to adjust his plan. They’re right, if he brings more resistance cells, they could do it. “We’ll need to coordinate our attacks so we don’t tip the Reapers off.” He starts making a mental list of the people they need to bring in, weapons and supplies they’ll need to check the stocks of. 

“Coool,” Mikey says. “Everybody together, this is going to be awesome!” 

They’re going to need to have a meeting, actually get the cell coordinators all together in one place for the first time ever. Quietly, carefully, so as not to tip the Reapers off, but they really do need to work some things out in person. 

It takes a couple days to spread the word, another couple of get everyone in the same spot — an abandoned school auditorium. 

That’s when Leo can no longer ignore the fact that he has to speak to a crowd of sixty people. 

“I can’t do this,” he mutters. 

“Yes, you can,” Donnie says firmly. 

Leo spares a moment to glare at him. If Donnie thinks it’s so easy to face a roomful of resistance fighters, he can damned well do it himself. Sure, Leo has met all of these people individually, but talking to them at once? 

Raph punches Leo in the shoulder, hard enough to sting. “Pull yourself together, Leo. I swear I am not doing some dumbass Captain Ryan pep talk for you.” 

Leo grinds his teeth and breathes in carefully, painfully aware of Raph and Donnie’s eyes on him. Mikey is already out there making the rounds, chatting everyone up, bouncing around like a pinball and loving every minute of it, even in the midst of a cataclysm. All Leo needs to do is go over the plan, field questions, assign teams to locations. He can do this. He does know these people. “Okay,” he says, pulling himself away from his slouch against the wall. “I’ve got this.” 

Raph gives him a brisk nod. “Good.” 

“Yes, you do,” Donnie adds. “Come on.” 

Leo takes a deep breath to settle his nerves and steps out onto the stage. The rustle of noise from the crowd quiets and suddenly they’re all looking at him. 

People aren’t supposed to look at him. He’s a ninja; he’s supposed to stay unseen. 

He feels pinned in place by all those eyes, vulnerable, out in the open no escape route— 

He takes another breath, this time to quiet the screaming of three decades of conditioning. Mikey waves at him from where he’s plopped down in the middle of the front row. April, next to Mikey, gives Leo a broad smile and a thumb’s up. At the edge of Leo’s vision, Raph and Donnie move into place on either end of the stage. The sense that at least he can’t be flanked is calming. At least, a little bit. Leo finds his voice. 

“Okay, everyone, here’s the plan.” 

It gets easier as he goes on. By the time people start asking questions, Leo is almost, though not quite, calm. 

The mission itself, two days later, goes smoothly, for once in their lives. The cells report a scattering of injuries across the city, a few of them serious, but no losses on their side, and they got their targets. It worked. New York is, for the time being, free of Dragons’ Teeth; the Reapers will have to get their husks some other way. 

It’s a win. An actual battle victory, not just another week of desperate skirmishes and hanging on by their fingertips. 

For the next few days, when Leo and his brothers make the rounds and visit the cells, there are victory parties everywhere they go. People pull out scavenged bottles of champagne or horrendous home brews; there are lots of smiles and laughter and claps on the back. 

Between visits, though, they return to the lair and eat the same packaged meals they’ve been eating for months and fall into bed exhausted, just like usual. The Reaper artifact still glows on Donnie’s monitor. 

It was worth it, this time, for that one victory. 

Desperate times, desperate measures. Whether it’s going to be worth it in the end, only time will tell.


End file.
